Return to Walden Pond

The plan for my visit to Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., is to plunge into its deep, still waters. Simply dipping a toe in won’t do - my secular baptism will require a full immersion in one of America’s most iconic ponds, made famous by writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who experienced a spiritual awakening when he moved to its shores at age 27 on July 4, 1845.

He lived alone here for two years in a small house he built himself, and often started his day with a swim. “I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise,” he wrote in Walden, his masterpiece of non-fiction published in 1854, which urges readers to live simply, intentionally and in harmony with nature.